Technologies of Organization of Students' Independent Work in Studying Pedagogical Disciplines at Classic Universities

Introduction

Pedagogical disciplines at a classic university, such as St Petersburg State University, are non-core, but they are in the curricula of virtually all areas of study, among them Psychology and Pedagogy, Personality Development in Education, Pedagogy of Creative Personality Development, Psychological and Pedagogical Aspects of Providing Effective Guidance of Gifted Students, Teaching Psychology in Higher Education, etc. Introduction of students in the world of pedagogical science and education problems, as a rule, focuses on the achievement of different goals. Yet, the main goal is becoming a creative personality capable of independent reflecting, entering into dialogue, searching for new, non-standard ways in the process of solving vital tasks. Existing educational models, systems, technologies, among which, nevertheless, it is difficult to single out the most effective, provide a real opportunity to make theoretical knowledge personally significant, stimulating students to creativity and self-development. In the meantime, it is necessary to correlate pedagogical competencies with professional competencies of students. This requires revision and updating both the content of the academic disciplines and the organizational forms of instruction. In many respects this concerns the organization of independent work of students, which proportion has recently increased significantly. It is connected with the growth of the volume of information, and with expectations of the labor market - to get specialists prepared to work independently.

In this regard, teachers who read the courses of pedagogical disciplines at universities are tasked with updating the didactic toolkit by applying both traditional and innovative educational technologies, showing ingenuity and pedagogical creativity. The main thing is that the selected teaching methods allow students not just to absorb ready information, but mainly to search for it independently in various sources, to form their own points of view, to be able to argue it, to use previously acquired knowledge as a method for obtaining new ones. But for successful organization of independent work of students it is not enough just to algorithmize this process and prepare a system of tasks. A person-oriented approach to learning requires to consider individual talents and abilities of students, meanwhile, educational technologies should be directed to their productive, creative development. The present chapter is aimed to describe the experience of using such technologies, namely, the technology of organization of students’ project activity and the technology of analytical reading in working with scientific texts.

But first it is necessary to define the terms and concepts that will often be found in this chapter, and to consider the characteristics of the “basic” technologies that contribute to the productive organization of students’ independent work: the technology of setting and achieving learning goals and the technology of person-oriented learning.